Broken Pieces Fit a Strange Kind of Beautiful
by dotori
Summary: They call her mad, they think he's beautiful, but they don't believe in the same kind of happiness.


Yay, fluff!

This is the first time I've ever attempted fluff (which is weird, because I'm not depressed... I think...) but it was actually really fun and... Less stressful, in a way? I don't know, really. But it was fun, even though it is somewhat deflated, as far as fluff goes.

I ship these two madly, (MADLY MADLY MADLY TO THE NTH DEGREE) and I haven't quite come to terms with Finnick's death yet. (Is it just me, or is there a surprising deficit of Annie/Finnick fic? I've found piles and piles of Finnick/Cinna, but Annie, who I absolutely adore, tends to be resolutely ignored in most of the fic I've come across. Maybe I'm searching wrong.) I've tried writing about it, but the denial is still there. :( OH COLLINS YOUR LIZARDS THEY MAKE ME ;_;

But anyway, I hope you guys like this~ rating and reviewing would be awesome! Really really really awesome! Please guys~ reviews make my day like nothing else :D

And finally: I don't own any of this. All credits for inventing this beautiful beautiful world goes to Miz Collins~ bless her (even though her lizards D':)

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><p>I wake up to the sound of her laughing, and for a moment I think I might be dreaming; I'm afraid that I am.<p>

I try to sit up, but the cold air hits my skin keenly, cuts like a knife. I hoist up the thick blankets, wrap them around myself, but I think I've gathered too many because the colors that trail behind me aren't all that familiar.

She turns around when she hears me come up to deck, and her eyes sparkle as she beckons me over. 'Finnick,' she calls, and her voice sounds almost giddy. She's still dressed in her bed things; her shorts hang thinly on her hips and her shirt is bulky and stained, but she looks so happy, so real, so perfect, and her hands are so warm when I hold them in mine.

'Look,' she laughs, points. Dolphins, maybe four or five of them; they slice through the water, chatter themselves up to our boat. It's an anomaly to them, no doubt; the boats don't usually come out this far-not here, anyway. This part of the ocean is roped off as part of the Victor's Village, not that anyone actually pays attention to the boundaries, but predators have learned to stay away from the places with the bigger feed. We've strung up enough of them in our nets. It's wide enough, here, for all of them, and cleaner. We share. We live.

They circle us twice more before they leave, ride the current out towards deeper water. Annie waves to them as they go, her head pillowed on her wrist. I wrap us both in the sheets, and I know for sure that I've caught hers along with mine; her red coverlet stains along my white one, and I can't see where the tangle is, where they're twisted together, but they're warmer this way so I leave them.

'You're not tired?' I ask, because it's still dark; she shakes her head. I rub my cheek against her hair, feel it, soft and scratchy, against my chin, along my jaw.

She grips the blankets in her hands, closes them tighter around us, like a cigar. She yawns, reaches up to my face. Her hand hovers around haphazardly, brushing my hair, my ear, but she eventually settles on my cheek. 'Let's go eat breakfast,' she says, waddles us below deck. 'I'm hungry.'

I rest my chin on the top of her head, close my eyes as I let her guide me. I'm suspended somewhere between sleeping and awake when she slips away, draws off the covers and sits me down. My eyes snap open, and I reach for the coverlet groggily. 'Hey,' I say weakly, reach for her, and she bats me away, shaking her head, but she's smiling. I stumble forward, and my hands catch her elbow; we tumble onto the floor, the blankets caught under us, tangled between our legs, and she's laughing, laughing, right into my ear.

She stays pressed against me for a moment, all along my side, and her hand splays out against my hand, drinks up the faint light. 'Alright,' she says, pushes up off the floor. I pull myself up onto my elbow, watch as she rummages through the cupboards. She manages to find some bread and oil; she balances them on a tray, sets it carefully on the floor.

'Careful,' she warns, watches me closely as I rip off a hunk of bread. 'Don't spill any crumbs.'

She tips some oil onto the tray, swathes her piece of bread in it repeatedly; I stop chewing and move closer to her, her arm aligned against mine, watch her paint patterns with her makeshift brush.

'What are you doing?' I ask, and she shakes her head, shoves it into her mouth.

I wrestle with a piece of crust, stuff it in my mouth when it finally comes off. I roll onto my back and stretch, feel the sheets shift under my body, the coolness of the floor through the fabric.

'What time is it?' she asks, and her face and hands are slick with oil. I hunt around for a watch; I find one that used to be my dad's, but he never really used it-he doesn't need it to tell the time.

'Around...' I give the watch a shake, squint at it. 'Five, I think.'

'Mmm,' she exhales, pulls me back down next to her. She twists into my body, so that her head is pillowed on my shoulder. 'What are we doing today?'

'Well,' I say slowly, tear at a piece of bread, stick it into her mouth. She exhales noisily, grips at it where it hangs out like a beak. 'Maybe we could have a swim. For a while. And we could trim the sails, or mend the nets, or have a picnic on deck; you could teach me how to play gin rummy.'

She makes an approving noise in the back of her throat, and it vibrates against my arm. 'What else?'

'We might meet your brothers out fishing, and we'd have dinner together, and then we'd have to go home.'

'Home?' she asks, and her voice is layered faintly with disappointment and hesitation. I kiss the top of her head slowly, nuzzle there for a long time. 'We have tomorrow,' I say, 'and the day after. They need us, too.'

She nods. 'I know,' she says, but the sound is heavy. 'They try not to show it, but...'

I run my lips across her temple as I nod. 'They can't help it,' I say, as gentle as I can manage. 'It's...' I try to talk around the lump in my throat, but all I can think of is Crystal, twelve last month, and Jonathan, six entries into the reaping ball. 'It's almost time for reaping.'

She nods again, slower this time, but her breath is even against my skin. 'Reaping,' she says. 'Right.'

I gather her up in my arms, onto my chest, and her hair spills around us, a dark curtain, leaves us enclosed in each other. 'It's okay,' I say, will myself into believing it. 'The odds are in their favor.'

She looks down at me and tries to smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes, doesn't touch the worry that churns there. 'They were for me, too,' she says. 'Like they were for you.'


End file.
